Page 87 of Deceptive Vows

His mother and sister.

“Mikhail, let me dress your wound. You’re bleeding.”

He chuckles off-key. “What the hell does a cartel princess know about dressing wounds?”

The answer to that is, she would most likely know nothing, butIdo. I know because I’m not a princess. I’m the pauper.

Tentatively, I reach out to touch his hand, as if I’m touching a predator who could devour me any second now, but he steps away from me.

“Don’t touch me. I have their blood on my hands.”

“Whose blood?”

“The men I killed.”

My heart freezes in my chest. I was right. He’s killed again.

“Who did you kill, Mikhail?”

“The men who bought my sister and thought it was a good idea to torture her so badly she had to beg for death.”

My God.

My soul trembles. Only hours ago, I talked to Sophia about Mikhail’s sister.

Hours ago I could only assume what must have happened. Now I know.

I can only imagine how she must have suffered.

“Look at her,” he says, staring at the painting again. The blood has completely defaced her image. “She was sixteen when I did that painting of her.”

He did the painting?

My eyes widen.

I don’t know what shocks me more. Glancing around the room, I look at the other paintings and wonder if he did them, too. They seem older, though.

Gritting his teeth, he steps around me then walks away and through another door to our left.

I follow him and see it goes back into the hallway. He continues down it and opens the door at the end.

This leads into an office. This is where I’m not supposed to be.

He takes off his jacket, and I gasp when I notice the deep knife wound running down his shoulder. It’s sliced through his shirt, and the whole sleeve is practically gone.

He opens another door at the back that leads into a little bedroom area. This office is equipped to work and sleep in. There’s a bathroom in there, too. That’s where he goes next as he continues taking off his clothes.

This is the first time I’ve seen him naked and not taken note of how good his body looks.

What I look at now is his wounds. There’s another gnash on his back.

He steps into the shower and turns on a heavy blast of water to wash over his head and wounds.

Blood flows down the drain as I stand there and watch him clean himself off. I watch until he decides to turn off the water minutes later and turns to face me, resting against the granite wall of the shower.

“Why are you still here?” he mumbles.

“I told you I wanted to dress your wound.” Which has already started bleeding again.